Dean Acheson

Dean Gooderham Acheson (11 April 1893-12 October 1971) was the US Secretary of State from 21 January 1949 to 20 January 1953, succeeding George Marshall and preceding John Foster Dulles. Acheson was a key player in the implementation of the Marshall Plan, the development of the Truman Doctrine, and the creation of NATO.

Biography
Dean Gooderham Acheson was born in Middletown, Connecticut, United States on 11 April 1893, and he was educated at Yale and Harvard Law School. He served as a personal assistant to US Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis from 1918 to 1921 before building a successful New York law practice thereafter. He became Assistant Secretary of State under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, and Under-Secretary for President Harry Truman in 1945. He urged international control of atomic power in 1946, outlined the Truman Doctrine of US support for nations threatened by communism, and helped to formulate the Marshall Plan. As Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953, Acheson helped in the creation of NATO, but the Republican Party criticized him for failing to pursue a more vigorous anti-communist policy, or to support Syngman Rhee in South Korea. He was known to be a stron gsupporter of France in French Indochina and the Republic of China in Taiwan. In 1961, he became an adviser to President John F. Kennedy, and he was one of the most important "wise men" who called in private and public for President Lyndon B. Johnson to end the Vietnam War. His memoirs won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize in history, and he died a year later.